


in the dream you were someone different

by Pearidolia (AraceliL)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Angst, Angstshipping - Freeform, Dysfunctional Relationships, I only tagged 'underage' honestly just to be safe I have no freaking clue how old they are in this, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Super healthy relationships are totally formed on grieving for a dead ancient spirit, Unrequited longing, dratsing called it 'ourboyfriendisdeadshipping' and that's pretty accurate, it motivates me, oh god so much angst, past tendershipping, past thiefshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6489766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraceliL/pseuds/Pearidolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-canon. Marik and Ryou find a dysfunctional solace in each other after they lose the Spirit of the Ring, but like all things fragile, it's only a matter of time until they break. </p>
<p>Also known as 'why the hell is all tendershipping super abusive wtf'</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the dream you were someone different

**Author's Note:**

> So this was actually adapted from a different story I wrote on ffnet, and it was bad, so I fixed it! Why did I write this. Sorry I don't contribute anything good to this fandom, I have like ten million ideas in my head but can't bring myself to write them.

The night is quiet as I gaze upon the empty ground, the swaying grass that gently wisps across your face as you lay beside me. Slowly, carefully, I take a deep breath, trying to steal some reassurance from the night's sweet, unassuming air. But I am not a thief, and have never succeeding in taking things that aren’t mine. 

Like you.

I look over at your face – your beautiful face, warped to another reality where you dream of him, tender in ways you can’t be in this reality. I'm not the fool you believe me to be – I know your secret.

Love, whom of us does not know your secret?

Yet even though you try to keep your hidden desire buried so deeply within your heart, it shines through your lavender eyes, as open and honest as the buds themselves. It’s in your every smile, rare as they are; treasures hidden far below the dusty sand, as most things in our life have been, so it’s an apt comparison, I think. Only these treasures no longer carry any ancient spirits, just longing and an echoingly loud emptiness in my head and your heart.

I am not a fool – but it’s easier to pretend I am.

I listen to your serene, peaceful breaths – but they lack in reassurance too. I can’t seem to chase away my insomnia under the stillness of the sparkling sky, under the influence of your whispering breaths. For some reason they mesmerize me, paralyze me – just as you do.

Just as you do.

I am not a fool -- but sometimes I think you know that.

But I can’t bear it any longer. I see the way your eyes graze me when you think I’m not looking, questioning, calculating, voiceless notions of worry that, if voiced, will add power to them, will crumble down the careful ignorance we’ve built like a house of cards collapsing. And I can't answer your troubled inquisitions – for you’ve never answered mine, a game of denial and avoidance played more skillfully than the cards in our hands.

An eye for an eye, the way  _ he _ once said.

Softly I unwrap your fingers from my own – my tired, guilty hands. You said, with that look in your eye, of how gentle my hands were. Now I can’t stand the fault they carry, the irritating  _ wrongness _ of the description, like an itch in my throat. My hands should not be gentle.  _ His  _ were not gentle.

A feeling unfamiliar is pulsing through my veins, fiery yet exhausted; it's as if the last of my spirit is extinguishing through my life's streams, begging for one last push before it can finally rest. Is this my final round? Is this  _ our  _ final round, love?

I brush my colorless hair away from my face, and push myself up from the dew-drenched meadow. I can't bear to look at you – yet I must take every look I can get.

You don’t belong in this world of color and moisture. The wet grass blades are tickling mockeries against your dusky skin, the water droplets settling triumphantly along the curve of your cheek a farce. You belong in worlds of fire and sand, in dramas worthy of being watched the world over, of decisions and words that command the attention of the very gods. You belong in these places, backgrounds that are only backdrops to the fervor blazing inside your soul.  _ He  _ belonged in those places, and so you do. 

Finally I tear my gaze away from your still body, a statue too opulent for my dingy backyard. I wonder, sometimes, if you wish to leave me to join  _ him  _ \-- and I selfishly thank the stars that you can’t. I don't know what I would do if I lost you, too.

But I already have, haven’t I?

My footsteps fall hauntingly on the deserted street as I tread dazedly through the leaves and the clutter. It is amazing how fast the seasons fly, isn't it? It's amazing how easily time departs from us, and at other moments, can't seem to tear itself away. It’s amazing how infatuated we mortals are with time, though she is a fickle mistress; we cling desperately to her skirts as she tries to take flight, and though in those moments we seemingly delay her departure, she always leaves in the end. 

Everybody leaves, in the end.

The moon seems to grin tauntingly at me, yet the stars glimmer with pity. It’s upon their sympathy that I rely as I slink down the ghostly path, but in the pale yellow sodium light, nothing has any color. My mind is as barren ( _ empty, silent _ ) as the moon and as blank ( _ empty, silent _ ) as the midnight skies, an open and bled canvas, no truths left to be revealed, no goals left to drive me. My heart and head and skin and soul are white, white, white, without him to color me, to seep  _ value _ from diamond-black eyes, to press  _ meaning _ into my throat with red lips. 

Can anyone bear to love me after this?

Can't you love me? Can't you love me how I want? Please…

The night is just light enough for spirits; purples and oranges coalesce in my pining vision, but they are just cruel, lifeless imitations of the real thing. I want to fall to my knees as I did so often during the aftermath, but I have no tears left, and besides, I know he wouldn’t want them.

The night is shallow as I amble towards it, unseeingly, unfeelingly. I feel like I could reach out my trembling arm and stroke the misty clouds, run a fingertip over the space of the sky, and that it might feel like him. But I can't. I know I can't, and you know I can’t, and you know you can’t, and our mutual pain is what drove us into the same bed in the first place, and now holds us together like a stain or residue that won’t wash away.

But I fell in love.  _ Love _ , as if that word makes a difference to you. You and him didn’t have love -- love doesn’t exist for people like you two, and you knew that. You created what you could, be it ugly or deformed or broken, but you shaped it under your hands like a slab of clay on a potter’s wheel, nursed it like a baby bird with a splintered wing until it could fly, and for a while, a brief, beautiful mosaic grouted in time, you both knew happiness in a way no one else could. 

No one else but me.

I want you to love me. Is it such a bad idea, cards on the table, hand on the deck -- all I want is for you to love me, in whatever way you can. 

A pale ring of light is beckoning towards me, and I wearily make my way to it -- anything to stop the shadows dancing in the corners of my eyes. My body is tense and my mind is reeling. I'm on the verge of something, and I can feel it. Yet I'm drained. I'm so tired.

I’ve already spent too much time thinking of you, too much time thinking of him, too much time thinking of everyone I’ve already lost. The abyss in my head, my heart, my soul seems to widen with every second I spend as if time wasn’t a precious commodity that I can hoard, and I’m wobbling on the edge of it, and it stares back at me, laughing with  _ it’s your move _ on its breath.

I think you have an abyss in your head too, though you wouldn’t tell me and I wouldn’t ask. What’s the purpose? Our house of cards was stable, and as long as we didn’t look on the faces of the suits, it stood. 

But I looked, and you saw me look, and you haven’t kissed me the same way since, and I haven’t let you kiss me the same way since.

I told you I loved you and you were as silent as the abyss in my head.

You'd always make up for what you didn’t say, sprawled between the sheets, and though I told myself that I understood, that I knew better than to spill what little of my heart I have left, it awoke something in me, like a Roman candle. It keeps ringing in my mind, bright and blinding, and I can’t put it out.

Part of me wonders if my intentions are as twisted and cracked as yours. Does my love for you -- my want for you to fall for me as I have for you -- stem from the fountain of loneliness and longing we both drink from? 

But I don’t dwell upon it in the moonlight the color of his hair, under the skies the color of his eyes, in the world tainted grey by his loss, because I know it will never be that way.

I have to leave. Everybody leaves, in the end.

It’s no secret that the both of us are running out of time -- the candle is almost burnt out, wax dripping down the sides -- and I have to leave. I can’t stay in this limbo forever, and neither can you. I’m so sorry to leave you like this. I'm sorry to lose you – but I've already lost you, haven't I? Why, Marik, I think – I think I never had you.

You’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. 

One day the abyss will close, the dark will hold no sway over you, and one day you’ll be able to look at me, to smile at me, to kiss me without thinking of him, and one day I’ll be able to look at my reflection without flinching, but until then, love…

Until then, keep the memories close and warm; until then, keep your eye on our mistress of time; until then, think of me fondly; until then, remember he isn’t really gone from us, not if he’s in our hearts and our minds, and until then, remember how much he hated sentimentality and smile. 

Until then, remember him, and I will, too, and time will finally repay us for being so cruel with long-awaited healing. 

Until then, I’m sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr for more writing and lots of YGO reblogs -- @slifer-the-executiveproducer  
> Also, currently looking for a beta reader, if anyone would like to help me out! Thanks! :D


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